“Every child deserves the best possible start in life and the support to fulfil their potential… experiences between birth and five have a major impact on their future life chances.”
— Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (DfE, 2021)

At Rimrose Hope, we believe that a love of learning begins with our youngest children. We are committed to providing a high-quality Early Years education that gives every child the best possible start and supports them to reach their full potential.

Our Early Years provision, for children aged 2 to 5, is built upon the principles of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. We provide a nurturing, safe and stimulating environment where children feel secure, valued and ready to learn. Through strong partnerships with parents and carers, we ensure that every child is supported to thrive.

Our Vision and Approach

At Rimrose Hope, our mission is clear: “Faith in our children – the hope for the future.” We believe that every child is a unique gift, full of potential, and that with love, guidance, and high-quality learning, they can shine brightly in the world. This vision underpins everything we do in our Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

We aim to inspire children through an engaging, ambitious, and carefully sequenced curriculum that reflects both statutory expectations and research-informed practice. Learning is purposeful, developmentally appropriate, and responsive to children’s interests, enabling them to build knowledge and skills over time.

Our philosophy is rooted in the belief that, like the message in John 1:5, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” We see each child as a light waiting to shine, and our role is to nurture and support them so that their talents, confidence, and curiosity illuminate their learning and their community.

Communication and Language are at the heart of our curriculum, reflecting national guidance and evidence from the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF). Strong communication skills underpin success across all areas of learning and are essential for children to express themselves, build relationships, and thrive.

Our approach is inclusive and ambitious for all learners. Every child is treated as an individual, supported to flourish academically, socially, and emotionally. Staff have high expectations and foster a positive, ‘can do’ culture, helping children develop confidence, independence, and resilience. Through this, our children are empowered to grow as capable, compassionate individuals, equipped for lifelong learning and life beyond school.

Teaching and Learning

Our approach balances:

• Carefully planned adult-led teaching
• Child-initiated learning within continuous provision
• Adult-supported interactions to extend and deepen learning

Experiential learning—learning by doing—is central to our practice. Children are actively involved in meaningful experiences that encourage curiosity, problem-solving, and critical thinking.

We provide a rich, language-focused environment where visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic approaches support all learners. Children are encouraged to make connections across areas of learning, apply their knowledge, and develop a lifelong love of learning.

Curriculum and Progression

Our EYFS curriculum is broad, balanced, and coherently sequenced, allowing children to:

• Remember more
• Know more
• Apply their learning to explain and reason

Learning experiences build progressively, preparing children for Key Stage 1 as confident, independent, and motivated learners. The curriculum nurtures the characteristics of effective learning: playing and exploring, active learning, and creating and thinking critically.

We provide a play-based curriculum tailored to each child’s individual needs, offering a safe and stimulating environment where children’s excitement and love of learning can flourish.

Assessment

Assessment is integral to supporting children’s progress and informing teaching:

• Ongoing formative assessment informs daily planning and learning experiences
• Termly summative teacher assessments track progress in Nursery and Reception
• Reception Baseline Assessment ensures statutory reporting requirements are met
• Phonics assessments are conducted half-termly in line with the Read Write Inc. programme
• Two-year-old progress checks are shared with parents, and continuous formative assessments guide independent learning plans

This approach ensures that all children make strong progress and receive the support they need to thrive.

Preparing for the Future

At Rimrose Hope, we provide a high-quality Early Years experience that equips children with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed for lifelong learning.

Through nurturing relationships, an ambitious curriculum, and our mission of “Faith in our children – the hope for the future”, our children leave the EYFS as confident, curious, and resilient learners. Each child shines in their own way, ready to embrace the challenges of Key Stage 1 and beyond.

Communication and Language

The development of children’s spoken language underpins all seven areas of learning and development. Children’s back-and-forth interactions from an early age form the foundations for language and cognitive development. The number and quality of the conversations they have with adults and peers throughout the day in a language-rich environment is crucial. By commenting on what children are interested in or doing, and echoing back what they say with new vocabulary added, practitioners will build children's language effectively. Reading frequently to children, and engaging them actively in stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, and then providing them with extensive opportunities to use and embed new words in a range of contexts, will give children the opportunity to thrive.

Through conversation, story-telling and role play, where children share their ideas with support and modelling from an adult, and sensitive questioning that invites them to elaborate, children become comfortable using a rich range of vocabulary and language structures across all areas of learning and through play. 

PSED

Children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSED) is crucial for children to lead healthy and happy lives, and is fundamental to their cognitive development. Underpinning their personal development are the important attachments that shape their social world. Strong, warm and supportive  relationships with adults enable children to learn how to understand their own feelings and those of others. Children should be supported to manage emotions, develop a positive sense of self, set themselves simple goals, have confidence in their own abilities, to persist and wait for what they want and direct attention as necessary. Through adult modelling and guidance, they will learn how to look after their bodies, including healthy eating, and manage personal needs independently. Through caring and supportive relationships with adults, children will learn to self regulate their emotions and begin to read emotions of others. Through supported interaction with other children, they learn how to make good friendships, co-operate and resolve conflicts peaceably. These attributes will provide a secure platform from which children can achieve at school and in later life.

Physical Development

Physical activity is vital in children’s all-round development, enabling them to pursue happy, healthy and active lives. Gross and fine motor experiences develop incrementally throughout early childhood, starting with sensory explorations and the development of a child’s strength, co-ordination and positional awareness through tummy time, crawling and play movement with both objects and adults. By creating games and providing opportunities for play both indoors and outdoors, adults can support children to develop their core strength, stability, balance, spatial awareness, co-ordination and agility. Gross motor skills provide the foundation for developing healthy bodies and social and emotional well-being. Fine motor control and precision helps with hand-eye co-ordination, which is later linked to early literacy. Repeated and varied opportunities to explore and play with small world activities, puzzles, arts and crafts and the practice of using small tools, with feedback and support from adults, allow children to develop proficiency, control and confidence.

Literacy

Literacy sessions are planned for daily. Our Literacy sessions are based upon the themes that we are to cover and follow our teaching style. The sessions are based upon the children using the concrete, pictorial and symbolic approach. This means that they will have as many practical experiences as possible before we expect them to make the connection with pictorial images and finally more abstract symbolic concepts. Adults model early writing and reading. Our Literacy is underpinned by quality key texts which are shared with the children by adults modelling reading the texts and linked practical activities which engage children in our indoor and outdoor continuous provisions. In Buddies, guided sessions are in the form of story time, rhymes, songs and role play. In Nursery, guided seasons are in the form of story time, rhymes, songs, sequencing activities, retelling or stories, role play and early writing activities. In Reception, guided sessions are in the form of modelled and shared writing, sequencing of events, use of Think Charts and organisers and role play. 

Key Texts:
We choose our key texts for literacy very carefully, based on extending children’s vocabulary and from these we extend topic based learning opportunities. 

Reading

It is crucial for children to develop a life-long love of reading. Reading consists of two dimensions: language comprehension and word reading. Language comprehension (necessary for both reading and writing) starts from birth. It only develops when adults talk with children about the world around them and the books (stories and non-fiction) they read with them, and enjoy rhymes, poems and songs together.

Skilled word reading, taught later, involves both the speedy working out of the pronunciation of unfamiliar printed words (decoding) and the speedy recognition of familiar printed words.

Reading starts in the Early Years and is facilitated through the Read, Write, Inc Phonics programme; children are taught the sounds and then taught how to blend these sounds for reading. Children are introduced to tricky words; words that cannot be sounded out. When they are ready, the children take home a reading book that is suited directly to their phonics ability. In Reception, children read in a guided reading group with an adult twice a week and read 1:1 daily supporting children with the skills of segmenting and blending decidable words and the application of reading tricky words. In Nursery, guided reading takes the form of sharing key texts and exploring the text through a range of practical and pictorial activities. 

Writing

Writing involves transcription (spelling and handwriting) and composition (articulating ideas and structuring them in speech, before writing.)

In the Early Years, any mark that a child makes is considered important as these are the early stages of writing. Children are monitored as they experience using different grips with writing implements, with the aim of encouraging children to use the tripod or pincer grip when they are developmentally ready. Children will start ascribing meaning to their marks and as they take part in daily phonics sessions their writing will develop into beginning to write some simple CVC words and then onto writing phrases, captions, speech bubbles, posters and finally sentences. In Nursery if the child is developmentally ready and in Reception we also focus on letter formation  so as we learn a sound in phonics sessions we also learn the correct way to form it. Writing is modelled by the teacher daily through literacy sessions and guided writing sessions, children complete daily guided writing activities and there are extensive independent writing activities throughout the indoor and outdoor provision. 
 

Phonics

Reading starts in the Early Years and is facilitated initially through developing their 'listening ear' which build secure early foundations which helps prepare them for successfully accessing the Read, Write, Inc Phonics programme. In Read, Write, Inc the children are taught the sounds and then taught how to blend these sounds for reading. Children are introduced to tricky words; words that cannot be sounded out. These Read, Write, Inc sessions are explicitly taught daily with opportunities for the children to rehearse and develop confidence in knowledge previously learned as well as apply their knowledge to new situations. Targeted phonic interventions take place daily and individual children are planned for through a targeted approach within provision. 

Mathematics

Maths sessions are planned for daily and children are taught explicitly in small groups with either the Teacher or the Teaching Assistant. Work is recorded in our Tapestry Learning Journal and in an electronic “Floor book”. The work within the floor book exemplifies the process undertaken in learning a mathematical concept.

The children in Nursery and Reception are immersed in maths; it is planned for in the environment and with additional opportunities to develop mathematical skills - (enhanced continuous provision across indoor and outdoor provisions, targeted interventions and weekly challenges) 

Developing a strong grounding in number is essential so that all children develop the necessary building blocks to excel mathematically. Children should be able to count confidently, develop a deep understanding of the numbers to 5 and then to 10, the relationships between them and the patterns within those numbers. By providing frequent and varied opportunities to build and apply this understanding - such as using manipulatives, including Numicon , counters and five and ten frames for organising counting - children will develop a secure base of knowledge and vocabulary from which mastery of mathematics is built. In addition, it is important that the curriculum includes rich opportunities for children to develop their spatial reasoning skills across all areas of mathematics including shape, space and measures and this is planned for throughout the indoor and outdoor continuous provisions. 

In line with Bruner’s theory of learning, new concepts are taught enactively, then iconically and, finally, symbolically as ways of capturing experiences in the memory. We also believe that it is important to include practical activities and discussion as an integral part of mathematics lessons; and the use of pictorial recording and the classroom environment are also important.

New mathematical concepts begin with the use of structured concrete materials including: structural apparatus such as cubes, counters, 3D shapes or weighing scales as well as contextual objects such as teddies or coins for counting or sorting; then develop imagery with pictorial representations including: children’s own mark making, simple drawings and part whole models using concrete resources; and lastly move to the abstract/symbolic which include: young children’s emergent graphics, early number formation and number sentences.

It is important that children develop positive attitudes and interests in mathematics, look for patterns and relationships, spot connections, ‘have a go’, talk to adults and peers, convince Maths Monkey about what they notice and not be afraid to make mistakes.

Key Text:
 

Numicon

Although a wide variety of concrete resources are used, Numicon is seen as a major tool in a child’s mathematical learning. Numicon shapes can be seen as 'pictures of numbers'. Numicon's imagery uses patterns to represent each numeral. The patterns are structured so number relationships can be seen and experienced. Numicon encourages an understanding of numbers and their relationships. Understanding numbers is reinforced through talk and use in real-life contexts. We strongly believe in a do, talk, record approach to support children’s confidence and understanding of mathematical concepts. 

Expressive Art and Design

The development of children’s artistic and cultural awareness supports their imagination and creativity. It is important that children have regular opportunities to engage with the arts, enabling them to explore and play with a wide range of media and materials. The quality and variety of what children see, hear and participate in is crucial for developing their understanding, self-expression, vocabulary and ability to communicate through the arts. The frequency, repetition and depth of their experiences are fundamental to their progress in interpreting and appreciating what they hear, respond to and observe. Throughout the continuous provision, children have access to resources which enables them to work creatively from our creative areas in the classroom, to transient art activities outside and large scale resources for creative learning outdoors. 

Children have access to a variety of different musical instruments that allows them to explore with pitch and sound. Children participate in music lessons where children are encouraged to sing as part of a group or individually. They are also introduced to musical instruments, rhythms and early music notation (stop and go signs.) We use the Charanga music scheme and BBC Sounds to enhance our music provision.

Understanding the World

Understanding the world involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. The frequency and range of children’s personal experiences increases their knowledge and sense of the world around them – from visiting the Zoo, visits from the pony sanctuary and important visitors such as dentists, police officers and nurses. In addition, listening to a broad selection of stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems, will foster their understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. As well as building important knowledge, this extends their familiarity with words that support understanding across domains. Enriching and widening children’s vocabulary will support later reading comprehension.